Media buyers spend their days optimizing funnels, shaving seconds off load times and debating whether a 0.3% lift in CTR justifies a new vendor. Meanwhile, the rest of the economy is busy doing the opposite.
American consumers are losing at least $165 billion a year to what can only be described as professionally engineered inconvenience, according to a report from Neale Mahoney, a Stanford economist, and Chad Maisel, a policy fellow at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive research organization.
That billion-dollar figure includes time on hold, surprise fees, spam calls and the unique joy of explaining your problem to a chatbot that responds like it just woke up from a nap. If you ever wondered what would happen if UX was designed by people who hate you, here it is.